Isaiah 62: 1-5 + Acts of the Apostles 13: 16-17, 22-25 + Matthew 1: 18-25
Tonight, another child helps us remember a very important truth-- that God-is-with-us.
At this joy-filled gathering, we recall that God did not wait until humanity
had it all together to come among us.
The Son of God comes into our darkness with the light of his presence and saving love.
The second person of the Divine Trinity takes on our sinful flesh and transforms it
by experiencing the entire gamut of the human experience,
from birth to death and all the joys and sorrows in-between.
God took upon himself our sinful humanity in Christ Jesus.
God was not repelled by our sin;
God did not wait until we were ready to receive God into the world.
In Jesus Christ, God came to save sinners by becoming one with sinful humanity
in order to save all women, men, and children from sin and everlasting death.
Why? We have to ask the question: Why?
Why not start Creation all over and hope for a more “perfect” people
to welcome His Son. Why? The answer can be summed up in one word---LOVE!
Even though we may reject the God of Love by closing our hearts to Him,
even though we may turn away from God in our sin, God is still with us, Emmanuel.
Remember---Emmanuel is his name, for the child born of Mary reminds us
that God is with us in everything at every time in every situation.
On this Holy Night, the prophet Isaiah reminds us that God delights in us,
in every single man, woman, and child that God has made!
God not only delights in you because he made you, but also because his Only Son
has become forever part of the human race.
God not only delights in you because he has held you in his heart from before
the beginning of the world, but God also delights in you because he has saved you.
Lest we forget, we come here tonight to remember that the Son of God
was born to save us from our sins, which blind us to God’s delight in us.
Like a father or mother delighting in their child, watching with eyes aglow
as their little one dances & frolics in their presence, so the Lord God delights in us,
his adopted children.
Lest we forget, Jesus, whose name means “God saves,” comes as Savior of the World
to heal us from all that blinds us to the light of God shining forth from others.
Because the sins we commit against others—those hateful words and hurtful deeds--
result from us not seeing the presence of God in others.
This blindness prevents us from delighting in others as God delights in them.
God delights in the human race, rejoices over you and me.
God expresses this delight by discarding all divine privileges to become one like us,
to taste the entire spectrum of the human experience.
The Son of God takes joy in being part of the human family.
The Son of God is not protected from anything during his time on this earth,
but he is sustained in everything by His Heavenly Father’s love.
The Son of God is exposed to the vulnerability of human existence:
born away from home in tough conditions, dependent on Joseph and Mary to protect him
from the power of evil forces marshalled by murderous King Herod,
becoming a refugee in Egypt,
and living a life hidden from the world for most of his thirty-three years on earth.
God delights in every human being and expresses that delight by becoming flesh of
our flesh and bone of our bone, by taking a human heart that can be broken by love.
The celebration of the Eucharist helps us find our memory once again.
At this table of God’s word, we remember all that God has done for us.
At this altar, we remember the greatest sign of God’s love for us,
that the Son of God’s body was broken and blood poured out to save us
from everlasting death.
Here we remember how he commanded us to love one another in a similar way,
to pour out our lives in love of others.
Here we remember what he told us to do in his memory
that we might have the strength to love as he loves.
As bread and wine are taken and blessed, we hear his words once again:
This is my body, take and eat. This is my blood poured out for you, take and drink.
As we enter into Communion with the Risen Lord Jesus,
God-is-with-us in the most solid and real way possible.
Tonight, the Son of God becomes flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone,
so that we will never forget we are His Body in the world.